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Shikata Ga Nai: Statelessness And Sacrifice For Japanese-American Volunteers During The Second World War, Kenzo E. Okazaki

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Through a Philosophical analysis of the nature of Internment Camps as well as oral histories of veterans who volunteered to serve in the US military from the camps, this paper will argue that the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was an event that the Supreme Court and surrounding legal discourse placed outside of legal jurisdiction. Those within the camps were thus condemned to a life lacking political qualification and juridical personhood. Faced with the dangers of this condition, interned Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. Army consciously laid claim to the American political community through the sacrifice of …